Lin Mu's eyes were on Xiaobao as his aura kept on increasing more and more.
"Observe him closely. Perhaps you'll get some tips for your own breakthrough in the future." Xukong advised.
"Yes senior." Lin Mu replied.
Lin Mu knew that his spirit sense could not penetrate the body of Xiaobao already and thus the only way for him to perceive it was through the spirit Qi waves and the changes in the auras that were emanated from him.
~thud~
Lin Mu quickly sat down and decided to observe as much as he could and take benefit of it. He observed Xiaobao for about five minutes with his full focus, but was unable to see much.
"Ugh, this won't be enough…" Lin Mu said and tried to think of another method.
After a few seconds, an idea did come to him, but he did not know if it would work or not.
"It's worth a try, anyway." Lin Mu decided.
~huu~
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. A second later, his lips started to move lightly and a low chant could be heard coming from his mouth. Lin Mu's eyes opened and a cold glare was emanated from it.
Severing Heart Sutra! Spatial Perception!
Severing heart sutra stilled his mind, removing everything unless from it, while also preventing disturbing thoughts from appearing in it. Then the Spatial perception allowed him to peer into the body of Xiaobao without spirit sense.
This was something that would not work on someone normally and if Lin Mu did do it, he would just end up seeing the space but not the person or anything within them. But the current situation was an exception.
Since Xiaobao was undergoing a breakthrough, there was a lot of spirit Qi moving around. This caused the space to show fluctuations as well, and that was something Lin Mu could see. Copyright Nôv/el/Dra/ma.Org.
Thus, Lin Mu observed the spirit Qi's movement using the spatial fluctuation as a negative contrast. This was of course, not fully accurate, but it was more than what he was seeing before.
Right now to Lin Mu, it looked like he was seeing everything through a sheet of cloth and things seemed to be a bit blurry. He couldn't see Xiabao's Dantian or meridians. All he could see was the fluctuations caused by spirit Qi, not even spirit Qi itself.
It was a complex situation where he was deriving conclusions from a third factor that was indirect.
~shudder~
Xiaobao's body started to shake as the spirit Qi in the atmosphere started to pour into his body rapidly. Lin Mu could even feel a different kind of spirit Qi mixed into it. Slightly diverting his attention to use spirit sense, Lin Mu sensed the new kind of spirit Qi that was arising from the sea.
"Is this the water elemental spirit Qi?" Lin Mu guessed.
~HONG~
His attention was quickly pulled back to Xiaobao's Dantian… or rather, the general area in which it was located. He could sense that the spirit Qi there was getting really agitated and seemed to be moving in a very peculiar manner.
'It is gathering in a specific place.' Lin Mu thought.
He could see another small outline floating in the area of the Dantian. Its shape was rather blurry and fuzzy, getting distorted every so often. But after observing it for a few seconds, Lin Mu understood what that was.
"That should be Xiaobao's Nascent soul itself." Lin Mu muttered.
He then looked below it and saw that the spirit Qi that was gathering was actually condescending below it. It was like a whirlpool of sorts had formed and all the spirit Qi was getting sucked into it.
More and more spirit Qi kept on getting sucked into it and time passed by.
After about an hour, Lin Mu could tell that the situation had arrived at a different stage. The whirlpool had started to fade away and behind it, another structure had appeared. It looked to be a flat circle that was a bit deformed.
Its shape was changing, and it looked to be rather flexible. The spirit Qi was actually moving into this circle, or rather into the circumference of it. The more that entered it, the more the circumference expanded.
After a certain point, it stopped expanding and its form had become relatively stable. No longer did it deform and kept a stable shape. Thirty minutes passed and now the circle was growing into a three dimensional form from the two dimensional one.
"It's… becoming a sphere?" Lin Mu said as he observed the change.
Bit by bit, the sphere started to take form and about an hour later, it was fully formed. It looked to be flickering and seemed like it would disappear anytime now.
"No… it's not disappearing. Rather, it is stabilizing. I can only see the spirit Qi that is volatile and moving. It needs to cause a spatial fluctuation in order for me to see it. If it is calm, it would do that and it will become invisible to me again." Lin Mu analyzed.
Lin Mu did not feel disappointed as he knew that this was the eventual end of the entire process. He felt lucky that he was even able to observe this much. A few more minutes passed and the sphere fully disappeared.
And along with the disappearance of the sphere, which was nothing but the Outline of the Dao Shell, the Dantian also disappeared.
~huu~
Lin Mu closed his eyes to rest them and took a deep breath. Observing for this long had put quite a lot of stress on them and he would not be able to use spatial perception for the rest of the day or two now.
Lin Mu stood up and suddenly smelled something near him.
"Huh? What's that aroma?" Lin Mu turned around and saw Little Shrubby.
"You're drinking the stew?" Lin Mu asked, feeling bewildered.
"You were busy doing your thing, and I was getting bored. So I thought I may as well eat.." Little Shrubby replied casually.